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Archive: June 2010 (61-70 of 135)

Jun 16 2010 04:23 PM ET

Dr. Dre and Jay-Z's 'Under Pressure' leaks

Categories: Dr. Dre, Hip-Hop/Rap, Jay-Z, Leaks

jay-z-dr-dre Image Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com “Under Pressure,” Dr. Dre’s collaboration with Jay-Z, seems to have leaked online this afternoon. The song’s imminent release was announced in early April before repeated delays tempered fans’ anticipation somewhat; just a few minutes ago, I was actually writing a post entitled “Whatever happened to ‘Under Pressure’?” Now it’s here, albeit in very unfinished-sounding form.

The leak, whose rough-take vibe I cannot stress enough, is not an immediate stunner. Dr. Dre takes the first verse, spitting some decently clever bars (presumably penned with help from Jay) over clubby bleeps and bloops. “Maybe I don’t want to stop, maybe I don’t want to quit,” he muses. “Maybe I’m crazy/Maybe I’m strapped right now, just bait me.” Dre raises his voice for some rousing words in Creole. Then, after a blank space where a hook might fit, it’s time for Jay-Z’s superior verse. Hov gets some snappy lines in, as when he informs us that life’s stresses have him “bringing guns to work, Gilbert Arenas.” And: “I’m in this party, I’m up to no good/And I should be ducking these clubs, Tiger Woods.” Given the timing of the two sports scandals he references, I wonder if Jay-Z recorded his verse any later than January. After another bit of negative space, Dre growls another partial verse. That’s it. Two and a half verses, no hooks, and this version of “Under Pressure,” at least, is out.

JUNE 17 UPDATE: Early this morning, Dr. Dre issued a statement about the leak. “I want to set the record straight for everybody who’s been waiting to hear my music,” he said through a publicist. “The song that’s on the Internet is an incomplete song that I’m still working on. When it’s ready, you’ll be hearing it from me.”

Have you heard “Under Pressure”? What do you think?

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

Jun 16 2010 02:34 PM ET

Glee beats Twilight to No. 1 on Billboard 200 albums chart

by Brad Wete

Categories: Charts, Christina Aguilera, Drake, Glee, Jack Johnson, Jewel, Justin Bieber, Lady Antebellum, Twilight

Image Credit: Michael Yarish/Fox; Kimberley FrenchYet again, Glee sits at the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart. This time around it’s for Glee: The Music, Journey to Regionals. It debuts at No. 1 with 152,000 copies sold. This is the show’s third No. 1 album, following The Power of Madonna and The Music: Volume 3 – Showstoppers, which lands at No. 7 and sold 40,000 copies this week. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack comes in at No. 2 with 144,000 units sold.

Christina Aguilera‘s fourth album, Bionic, debuts with particularly underwhelming sales at No. 3. It moved 110,000 copies. Last week’s chart-topper, Jack Johnson’s To the Sea, falls back to No. 4 with 89,000 albums sold. Plies’ Goon Affiliated backs in at No. 5 with 56,000 sets bought. Selling 49,000 albums this week, Justin Bieber’s My World 2.0 drops four spots to No. 6. Lady Antebellum‘s Need You Now also falls four to No. 8, selling 39,000 copies. Dierks Bentley’s Up On The Ridge debuts at No. 9 with 38,000., while Jewel’s Sweet and Wild creeps into the top 10 at No. 10 with 31,000 albums sold.

Drake’s Thank Me Later hits the chart next week. Think he can overpower Twilight and Glee? Let us know.

Jun 16 2010 02:33 PM ET

Rdio: Are you tuning in to the latest online music service?

by Simon Vozick-Levinson

Categories: Downloads and Streams, Music, Tech

The deal being offered by Rdio, a highly hyped online music subscription service that’s in the process of launching, is a simple one. Pay $4.99 a month and you get access to millions of streaming tunes through your Web browser; up that to $9.99 a month, and you can stream them on your mobile devices, too. You can also download some of those songs for $1.29 a pop, but the emphasis is on the streaming subscriptions. This isn’t a particularly new model. So what does Rdio have that previous subscription sites like Rhapsody and the reincarnated Napster don’t?

After spending an afternoon test-driving Rdio, I can report that it features a clean, fast, easy user interface. But what really counts for a site like this is catalog. Poking around Rdio, I was able to stream brand-new jams from the diverse likes of Drake, Eminem, Janelle Monae, Sleigh Bells, Beach House, Tokyo Police Club, and Laura Marling. I also found deep representation for my favorite artists from the ’90s (Radiohead, Jay-Z) back to the ’70s and ’60s (Bruce Springsteen, Phil Ochs). Rdio’s most gaping holes at the moment are in the indie world: St. Vincent, Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Spoon, Flying Lotus, and Morning Benders all came up more or less short. You can also forget about streaming the Beatles, but that’s of course true everywhere else as well. May Rdio strike mutually agreeable deals with each of these artists’ respective labels in the near future.

Have you checked out Rdio yet, or do you plan to? Let us know what you think.

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

Jun 16 2010 11:47 AM ET

Amy Winehouse's dad releases an album, unleashes inner Sinatra

by Leah Greenblatt

Categories: Amy Winehouse, New Stuff, Things That Are British

Image Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesMitch Winehouse, the father of that erstwhile beehive of trouble and talent, Amy Winehouse (now reportedly healthy and happy in her new sobriety) has a Rush of Love.

Specifically, that’s the title of his debut record, consisting mainly of covers, with four originals—”"no album of the usual Rat Pack standards,” he insists, “it is jazz, swing, crooning.”

The onetime cab driver admits he wouldn’t be in the business at all if not for his very famous daughter: “”As far as I’m concerned, there was no other way into the industry for me, because, you know, I wasn’t even a singer when I was younger. Maybe I’m giving a big up to the geriatrics of the world. Never too late.”

You can watch a recent UK television performance of the actually very Rat-Pack-standard-y “Rush of Love to Heart,” after the jump. Granted, Papa Winehouse has historically been about as press-shy as Speidi when it comes to addressing the bits and bobs of his daughter’s private life, but he seems like a decent guy—one self-aware enough to tell the show’s host, “I’m not silly; I know I’ve got the gig cuz I’m Amy’s dad,” before launching into his breezy, Sinatra-lite “Rush”: READ FULL STORY »

Jun 16 2010 09:59 AM ET

Eurovision: Europe is obsessed with winner Lena's 'Satellite' -- and I am, too!

by Tanner Stransky

Categories: ABBA, Buzzworthy, Current Listening, New Stuff, Songs of Summer

Who else loves Eurovision? What—you don’t know what Eurovision is?!? For shame! Well, here’s what you need to know: It’s the crazy-delicious European singing competition that coalesesces into an extravaganza pitting European country against European country, and was initially responsible for the discovery of a little Swedish pop group called ABBA, which won the songwriting contest with “Waterloo” back in 1974. (See our coverage of last year’s winner here.)

Out of 39 countries participating this year, Germany’s Lena won with her performance of “Satellite.” True, she was crowned the winner back at the end of May. So that’s not news. But I write this post because I just returned from a two-week jaunt through Denmark, Germany, and The Netherlands, and Lena was more ubiquitous in Europe than pommes frites. They’re obsessed with her and her ridiculously infectious pop ditty! Literally, I heard it everywhere from the train station to bakeries to gay bars.

I got sucked in and have been listening to “Satellite” on repeat for days now. How can you not love a trifle with lyrics like this:

I went everywhere for you
I even did my hair for you
I bought new underwear, they’re blue
And I wore ‘em just the other day

Anyway, just thought—in case you hadn’t heard it—that you all might want to. Lena’s already burning up the European Billboard charts and the video of her song that I’m embedding below (watch it!) has snagged almost 17 million views:

READ FULL STORY »

Jun 15 2010 05:08 PM ET

Adam Lambert's 'If I Had You' video reveals where the wild things are

by Michael Slezak

Categories: Adam Lambert, Allison Iraheta, Ke$ha

The lyrics for Adam Lambert’s latest single, “If I Had You,” suggest decadent scenes in nightclubs and hotels and assorted urban glamor stations. But for the corresponding video, which hit the Web yesterday, the unrepentant imp/American Idol season 8 runner-up takes the song’s “life would be a party, it’d be ecstasy” lyrics and transports them to a forest setting. It’s like a mashup of Where the Wild Things Are, Xtina’s “Dirrty” video, and a light splash of Avatar. (Seriously. It’s set in the woods, and Adam has a big, crazy mullet-braid/Na’vi thingamajig, and there are enchanted glowing streamers all over the place, no?) READ FULL STORY »

Jun 15 2010 04:44 PM ET

New OK Go video, 'End Love': They come in colors

by Leah Greenblatt

Categories: Indie Rock, Music Videos, New Stuff, OK Go, YouTube Delights

Wry L.A.-based rockers OK Go—champions of the homegrown viral-video experience, avid practitioners of treadmill-dancing, Rube-Goldberging, and other time-consuming DIY pursuits—have returned with yet another hard-earned clip. Though this one is, in comparison, relatively simple in concept and execution.

Still, it has many of the band’s hallmarks: Outfits pulled from the Teletubby color wheel; rampant use of dude choreography; time-lapse camera magic; general hey-why-not-ness (see: goose cameos).

Stream it after the jump—and download the song, a sort of jaunty atmospheric-funk Purple Rain b-side, for free on the band’s official site. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 15 2010 03:32 PM ET

Lil Wayne phones in a verse from jail on Drake's 'Light Up'

by Brad Wete

Categories: Drake, Hip-Hop/Rap, Lil Wayne, Things That Really Could Have Been Avoided

Image Credit: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images; Jonathan MannionBeing cooped in a Rikers Island cell won’t stop Lil Wayne from getting some work done. On the eve of his Young Money label mate Drake releasing his highly anticipated debut Thank Me Later (out now), Wayne decided that he wanted to add a verse to “Light Up.” The track already features Jay-Z schooling Drizzy on what it’s like to live in the spotlight. The obvious problem for Weezy was how he would record his verse without being able lay his vocals down in a studio. The answer was simple: Wayne took a day to gather his thoughts and rhymes, then called his crew back to have his verse recorded over the phone. Last week Wayne’s verse leaked online without the beat or appearances from Drake and Jay. This morning Drake’s engineer, 40, posted the finished product on their blog.

“I’m in my cell, reading fan mail/Wish I was Amsterdam sipping Amstel,” Wayne raps. “Behind bars, but the bars don’t stop/Recording over the phones/I hope the call don’t drop. Drizzy got the ball/I know the ball won’t drop/And I pray none of my kids ever want to be cops.”

The barely audible verse is lyrically a solid offering from Wayne. But without the polishing and mastering only a studio can provide, I doubt I’ll listen to this track ever again. Have you heard it yet? Let us know what you think of it.

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

Jun 15 2010 02:16 PM ET

B.o.B and Hayley Williams mope together in 'Airplanes' video

by Simon Vozick-Levinson

Categories: B.O.B., Music Videos, Paramore

“Airplanes,” B.o.B’s collaboration with Paramore’s Hayley Williams, is only two spots below Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” on the charts, but the pop hits’ new music videos could hardly be more different.

If the “California Gurls” clip is a kid-in-a-candy-shop fantasia, “Airplanes” is a moment of gloomy reflection. B.o.B and Williams never appear on screen together. She’s sitting somberly with her legs drawn in while he paces a dreary warehouse where his lyrics are projected on the walls. Then she’s singing from a pile of old photos come to life; a bit later he’s standing in the spotlight, performing for a crowd that exists only in his memory. “I could really use a wish right now,” they both repeat.

The “Airplanes” video isn’t streaming free online, sadly, but it is available for purchase through iTunes. Have you seen it? Was it worth your $1.99? Sound off in the comments.

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

Jun 15 2010 12:07 PM ET

Katy Perry indulges her sweet tooth in 'California Gurls' video: Watch here!

by Simon Vozick-Levinson

Categories: Katy Perry, Music Videos

The video for Katy Perry’s smash “California Gurls” is out, and it’s a Technicolor Teenage Dream all right — or, if you happen to be a dentist, more like a teenage nightmare. The Mathew Cullen-directed clip finds Perry and Snoop Dogg cavorting through a sugary heaven populated by writhing candy canes, surly gummy bears, hapless ginger bread men, melting popsicle dudes, and more. All those animated desserts inspire some matching fashion choices for Perry, including a dress made of candy buttons, another outfit involving strategically placed whipped cream canisters, and several shots in which she lounges on a cotton-candy cloud wearing nothing much besides a silver wig.

It’s a fun clip that fans of Perry’s breezy West Coast anthem are sure to love. Check it out after the jump and let us know how you like the “California Gurls” video — and how it measures up to the latest work of Lady Gaga, with whom Perry is definitely not feuding.

READ FULL STORY »